Displaying items by tag: church

The new Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, has spoken of his desire to advance racial equality in the Church of England. He said he wanted to see the same change happen for the BAME community as has happened with women, who in recent years have become bishops for the first time. He said, ‘One of the failings of the church has been a form of tokenism without addressing the deep systemic issues of exclusion and prejudice, Jesus was a black man, and was born into a persecuted group in an occupied country.’ He added, ‘Jesus would have joined the Black Lives Matter protests. The Church of England leadership is still too white, and I hope under my watch we'll see further changes on that.’

The prime minister's plan to spend £5 billion on rebuilding the economy after the coronavirus crisis has been met with scepticism by Rt Rev Martin Gorick, Bishop of Dudley. In a keynote speech in Dudley, Boris Johnson announced a new ‘opportunity guarantee’ to help the economy cope with the ‘aftershock’ of the coronavirus crisis. Bishop Martin said, ‘We need to pray not just for warm and expansive words, but we need to pray for cool calm thinking, planning and the real determination to deliver for the poorest communities, and especially for some of our young people.’ The Prime Minister acknowledged that it might seem premature to make a speech now about Britain after Covid, given events in Leicester, but said, ‘We cannot continue simply to be prisoners of this crisis. The country needs to be ready for what may be coming’.

Community growing schemes are enabling churches to develop relationships with people who would never come to a Sunday service; because of that, opportunities arise for church members to pray with their neighbours in times of need or struggle. It is a new expression of what church is and can be when relating to the unchurched neighbourhood. Community gardening initiatives vary from gardens whose object is to provide social connection to sustainable food production, supplying foodbanks and other areas of need. Some churches are involved in both. The environmental adviser to the Archbishops’ Council sees the potential for community food-growing alongside therapeutic gardening in initiatives such as the Church Times Green Church Awards, churchyard initiatives, biodiversity projects, and the target to be carbon-neutral by 2030. There is a huge surge of interest from people wanting to grow something.

The Catholic Church has said that the Government should treat the effects coronavirus has on ethnic groups as a matter of urgency. New analysis suggests that black men and women are more than four times more likely to die a coronavirus-related death than white people. Black males are 4.2 times more likely, and black women 4.3 times more likely, to die after contracting the virus. People of Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, and mixed ethnicities also had an increased risk of death compared with those of white ethnicity. While public health leaders have said that they will review how different factors, such as ethnicity, obesity, and geographical location influence the effects of the virus, the church has said that more must be done.

Ebola caused a tremendous set-back for the New Generations ministry in Sierra Leone. They saw an average growth of 2,000 new churches annually, but in the epidemic this dropped to less than 200 annually. Fear of getting infected caused people to avoid personal contact. In disciple-making the Gospel spreads through natural social networks, by contacting people - in the same way as the virus. Church planting halted, so they decided to trust God and repurposed themselves to serve their communities, the government, the NGOs, and wherever the need was high. This made a strong and lasting impact in the predominantly Muslim communities. People who were quite closed before Ebola opened up to the Gospel because of the serving attitude of the church planters and their timely interventions. The enemy can use fear to bring the Church to a standstill, so the most important enemy to overcome is fear.

500+ clergy and lay people signed a letter to the Times calling for a rethink to current guidance on church shutdown. They said that closed churches are stifling their prophetic witness and defence of the poor. They agreed that temporary closure of churches for public worship is necessary in the current crisis. However, the broadcast of services from a closed church is explicitly permitted by government guidelines and almost all other churches are doing this, but ‘the Church of England has gone beyond this advice’. Since the publication of this letter, the CofE has responded by issuing revised guidelines outlining the precautions which must be taken if a church building is being used for private prayer or streaming worship: see

London City Mission cares for sick and marginalised Londoners. Pray for churches in lockdown as they adapt to share the gospel of light in the darkness of this crisis. May Christians be beacons of light so that God’s grace is apparent in London and the nation. Pray for people like Kris, homeless and a Big Issue vendor, who can’t sell his magazines and relies on one meal a day. Pray for provisions to be made for the homeless in lockdown A Glasgow homeless shelter had to close when a staff member and a service user caught coronavirus. They tried to prevent people from being left without shelter, but those with insecure immigration status or complex background issues are sleeping on the streets after the council said they did not have a statutory duty to accommodate them. Pray for councils and police to care for self-isolating homeless. See

Pastor Huang Lei leads a church in Wuhan. The coronavirus crisis makes it impossible for his church to have their usual gatherings, so they are meeting online. They are not just doing church, but being church. ‘First, we have more than 50 groups,’ he says. ‘Almost all the groups are meeting via the internet - praying, studying the Bible, sharing, witnessing, praising and worshipping. Of those 50, we have over 30 groups spending two hours every day to pray, worship, share and testify together. That’s far more frequent than our normal meetings. Of course, now we have more free time; everybody is staying at home, so that’s given us the chance to do this. But we usually have the group meeting weekly and now we’re doing this daily. Sometimes even more, so we are very grateful for that.’

In response to coronavirus, 60 million Italians have been told to stay at home until 3 April, except for work and emergencies. As Italy deals with a total lockdown, gospel opportunities are flourishing. The vice-chairman of Italy’s Evangelical Alliance said, ‘Often our challenges bring with them opportunities. We've never experienced a time of openness towards spiritual conversations as we have in the past few days.’ The Diocese of Rome has cancelled the celebration of all Catholic masses and announced a day of fasting and prayer with a special televised mass. People are struggling to handle fear, anxiety and despair. That, of course, is a pain, but it brings opportunities for the Gospel to be shared, and also to be lived out. Although we may not go around to homes, we can phone, we can use technology, we can try to stay close to people as much as possible’.

The government wanted to install facial recognition cameras in Pastor Xiang En’s church sanctuary. When he refused they did it anyway and gathered the private data of church members so that they could target them. They will intimidate them with their jobs, their housing, and their children’s education to prevent them from going to church. Pastor Xiang said, ‘Hundreds of policemen raided our church, smashed our building, put the pastors on surveillance, and shut down the church.’ After his church was shut down the first sermon he preached was from Revelation 3:7-8: ‘I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.’ Pastor Xiang remains hopeful, despite the opposition his congregation faces. Many prominent mainstream churches and house churches in China continue to be shut down.